Five tips to avoid four Amazon email scams

The Amazon email scams come in many different flavors. Most scammers will customize their emails a bit, but many are identical. Here are four different fake emails, all using Amazon.com as the lure. Let’s begin with the Amazon survey scam, which looks something like this.

You have been selected to take part in improving our customer service for 2015. After you complete our 30 second questionnaire as a way to say “Thank You”, you’ll receive an exclusive reward worth over $50.

The reality is, there’s no Amazon customer service survey, no meaningful feedback will be provided to Amazon, and the only reward you’ll receive is a virus, malware, or having your identity stolen. In this case, the reward mentioned is not an Amazon gift card, but that’s also used frequently. Here’s an example.

There were three links in this email. Two went back to Amazon.com, the third went to a site owned by Victor Valenzuela from Daleville, AL. Before you start thinking that Victor might be running a legitimate company in good old Daleville, you should know that the website itself is hosted on a server located in Bulgaria. Yeah, that Bulgaria. The one right between Serbia and the Black Sea.

Another popular spam email is the one claiming your account has been locked. It will look something like the following.

We recently received multiple failed login attempts to your account. As a result, access to your account has been temporarily locked.

To unlock your account access, click: Sign In to My Amazon Account and proceed with the verification process.

Last, but not least, is the appeal to the old entrepreneurial spirit. It begins with lines like “Stop putting money in someone else’s pocket!” The email will include calls to action such as “Be your own boss.” Make no mistake, the only entrepreneurial spirit with these emails is their malicious intent.

My last Sunday Scam Tip was 5 tips to spot a bogus email. Use the link to view the post or, for those who are in a hurry, here are the highlights:

Terry

I started out as a skip tracer. Just in case you don’t know, that’s the guy who finds the people who don’t want to be found. It was the little things—getting paid to lie—that made skip tracing the fun part of the job.

Those years of chasing deadbeats taught me many valuable life lessons, such as liars come from all walks of life, and always keep your car in the garage.

Reader Interactions

Comments

My mother “won” a free iPhone on a amazon survey and had to pay 40 dollars in S/H fees. She got alerted by the bank that a transaction had been made 2 days after her purchase but the site never told her that any money was taken. And when I tried to find proof of a survey it did not exist. She put in all her credit card and address information,Should I expect a credit card theif ?

Hi Leslie, you should notify her credit card company immediately. They will likely cancel the card and issue her a new one. You could always watch for fraudulent transactions, but who knows how long those would take to show up. Better to be safe! Good luck!

Hi there, I’m so absolutely embarrassed that I fall for these things! An Amazon $1,000 gift card giveaway popped up on my phone and so I started to go through the steps to redeem it. I only entered in my name and email address and stopped finishing the entire process when I saw they needed more information and I was a little bit leery. But what should I do now or am I okay with them having the email address and name?

This happened to me today. I completed what I thought was an Amazon Survey and selected the Buka Mens Grand Prix Watch. I was also charged $5 and change for shipping. When I called the representative told me that it was a 14 Day Trial and it started on the date of the order which was Jan 15th. I asked how is it ethical for you to start the 14-Day trial the day of the order instead of when the package arrives to the customer. The representative tried to offer me a discount off of the 3-Watch Collection. I asked for the supervisor who continued to make it seem that I was negligent and did not read the fine print. I told them that this was a scam, they did not disclose the cost of the watch, the 14-Day Trial is BS and if I did not receive a 100% Refund I would alert my Bank, Amazon and BBB. I was given a speech and then received two email while on the phone from them. One was a refund and the other was a cancellation of my account. I alerted my bank and will probably call Amazon to alert them as well.

This happened to me as well, although I chose the lotion stuff instead. My emails always showed Easter eggs for some reason and click on any one to choose a prize. I didn’t even open the lotion and was not told it was a trial until the package arrived and I read the instructions. Then I saw that the little 2 oz. jar was going to cost me an additional 86 after the 5 I paid for shipping. I called the company immediately and was very irate. They said full refund and cancel account and all. Next day, they took out of my account. I then received a 35 dollar overdraft fee from my bank. Called the company and was told it would take 3 to 5 days to show. Waited 5 days and got charged another fee from my bank. So I called the bank and they disputed it and gave us a temporary cash loan for 86. They took back their fees and eventually got the company. I’m still fighting with partsgeek.com, however. I returned a produce and never got refunded and now they say my order “never existed”. It’s wonderful. Glad you got yours back as well!

If you have an iPhone, I suggest you try the Genius Bar at the Apple store. Android, I have not idea. You may need to wipe the phone clean and start from scratch, but that’s a very drastic move and should only be done after everything else has failed.

The best thing I’ve always done in these situations is called the company up and start threatening them. I’ve had it work for me a couple of times. They fully refunded my money and cancelled my account with them. I told them that it was a scam they were committing fraud and I would turn them into the BBB and that I have friends with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. I told them that I work with the federal police which in my case is true. And that I would turn them in if they didn’t fully refund my money and cancel my account. At first they tried to haggle with me told me they would give me a 10% refund I said no you will give me all of my money back you stole they said okay okay will give you a 50% refund I said no you’re only giving me half the money back you stole from me. I said you will give me a full refund they said okay okay will give you 75% refund back I said no I will turn you into the Federal Bureau of Investigations this is fraud you will give me 100% full refund back nothing less or I will turn you in! They put me on hold for a minute came back and said okay we will give you a full refund and cancel your account. I told them I would be monitoring my account very closely to make sure the money got put back and if not I would turn them into the people I work with in the government.

I got one of these “surveys” and (stupidly) clicked on it to claim to $50, it then came up that I had 5 minutes to click again to start the survey. At that point I realized it wasn’t good, stopped, and deleted the email. Do I have anything to worry about?

Probably not, Joe. Most of those are trying to get you to enter information, so if you didn’t provide anything, that’s good. On the bad side, they’ll now know your email address is “good” and you may wind up on more email lists.

i was scammed from an amazon survey for 97 dollars,, on line,, said pay only postage got the ugly watch but took 97 bucks out of my account…. will not refund money.. bunch of oriental crooks out there..d0 not take surveys

Just for curiosity, after I received an email Expiring Soon:Your $50 Amazon Reward
WA Welcome to Amazon.Survey
Reply|
Today, 9:38 AMsam.olivo@yahoo.com

Googled it and was told that Amazon DOES do some surveys this way so I decided to tried it. Answered a few questions (nothing as to credit card numbers or anything) but as to how I like Amazon, was I happy with it, my age group, etc. When through it offered me NOT the $50 reward promised, but my choice of several items that were supposedly FREE, but I WOULD have to pay shipping. Declined as it seems to be more of a come-on just to get you to buy their junk (most of the offers were junk – from beauty aids to male enhancement). There was an IPOD pro, but conveniently it was “sold out.” TOTAL SCAM !!!

Too bad you don’t allow images here or I would have sent you theirs. At the bottom of the email it says
: IT DYNAMOS @ 1050 E 2ND STREET #245 EDMOND, OK 73034 UNITED STATES

Sorry to hear you got scammed, Clifton. Talk to your bank ASAP. You may or may not have time to avoid payment. You’ll also want to talk to the bank about how to avoid future charges from these guys in the future. Otherwise, they might tap your account again.

Hello,my name is Stephanie Summarell and I despertaly need your help.As you may know there are several websites that if you do surveys,games,ect…you receive coins or points.Like example Lucktastic,Shopkicks,Applike…ect.Anyway back on May 11,2017 I won a $500.00 gift certificate from one of my sites and placed it into my account.Within seconds of placing my money into my account,someone hacked in while I was on site and stole every cent.I called and reported it.Amazon found the person,name,IP address ect,and said they would get my money back to me.I am still waiting on that refund.Then over the months of May – August cashed in all my points and bought and saved all of My gift certificates which were in the amounts of $300, $250,$100.So finally on August 28th I made my very first purchase since 2013.Everything went very smoothly.Then on August 30,2017 I decided to purchase 2 rings (Which both were paid for in full)for my husbands and I’s anniversary.The transactions went through without a problem…transcation number:112-6509396-4126615..which was a total amount of $182.20.The second transcation number…112-5191015-3341017 which was a total amount of $289.00.This is where things start to take a turn for the worse because I went to go back into my account because I was going to buy my sons kindergarten teacher more supplies for her classroom.It was then that I seen the notice that stated my account had been frozen which in turn canceled my fully paid for items.I didn’t seem to understand why this was happening so I tried to call an my phone number had been blocked as well.So,I picked up my husbands phone and called customer service and was blown off by anyone and everyone.Finally I spoke to an account specialist by the name of Mike and her was a real winner and treaed me like crap.He told me that they canceled all of my orders and if I wanted the items I would have to repay for them.So,I wrote the CEO Jeff Beazo and explained the situation.My account was unlocked quickly.After reinstatement of my account I found emails in my order section that showed he had put holds on all my prepaid gift cards that I won and said that I was never suppose to have them because the MasterCard they were bought with never went through.They were won from a website and not purchased on a mastercard.I then also seen where this Mike person placed a hold on my $500 that had been stolen from me on 05/11/2017(Transation number- 113-2811986-6694661) as well my $250.00 gift card …transaction number 112-9063034-1745059 from 08/13/2017,then transaction number…113-3936114-9165053 which was my $300.00 gift card,and finally on 05/11/2017 and lastly my $100.00 gift card…transaction number 113-4527906-3070637..Now they are stating that they don’t owe me anything and They have no knowledge of my gift cards.I took pictures of my messages with my cell phone when I pulled up my account on my mothers laptop.Amazon has been slowly deleting my messages and I can’t find my order now.Lucky for me I wrote all of the order numbers down.They aretrying to sacm me out of a total amount of $1621.20.Something needs to be done with this company.I have contacted the better business bureu in regards to this matter but with no call back.I hope that you can help me resolve this problem.I just want my money,hopefully in a check so I can just buy my items on Ebay.com.I would even be happy with them placing the money into my paypal account.I hope reaching out will help me.Have a great day and thank you for letting me write my concerns.

Hi Stephanie, sorry this took so long to get back to you. I had a problem in receiving comments through my website. I hope this has been resolved for you by now, but if not, you should file a complain with the IC3.gov. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to help you get your money back or not, but they’re the best ones to handle something like this.

You can try contacting the company, but that may not do a lot of good. If the company refuses to do anything and you paid by credit card, you can dispute the charges and may have some luck there. But, once you’ve placed the order and paid for it, you’re really at a disadvantage.

Yes. And these scams, along with the “millions” being held in ______ (fill in the blank) which only requires that I wire $_____ to _____ (a couple more fill-in the blank) so that these funds can be transferred to my bank. I just delete them. It’s nonsense at the outset…usually filled with improper syntax, bad grammar, and the like….

You’re right, Charles, these are nonsense. Unfortunately, many people get caught by inattention and a lot still suffer from the “what if it’s true” mentality. Then, there’s the problem of the spam getting better and better. That’s what worries me. The newbies who are just getting started are easy to ferret out, it’s the ones who have been around a while and no longer make those beginner mistakes that are the real problem. Thanks for the comment!

Hi Marjorie, I agree that these are major pain. Unfortunately, they come from all over the world and there’s not much you can do for most. However, when they’re tied to a specific organization such as Amazon, the company may be trying to eliminate the source. For instance, Amazon has a way to report these emails. Their procedures are at http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_v4_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201127830. Some companies have similar reporting systems in place, so one way to check is to search online for the company name followed by “email abuse”.

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